Labour membership surges by 100,000 as leadership race deadline looms tonight

Labour membership has surged by more than 100,000 as the deadline to sign up for the leadership contest looms at 5pm tonight.

Party officials are understood to have seen an influx of new joiners and returning members as they hold the ballot to replace Jeremy Corbyn .

Few staff members are allowed to see full membership data and Labour refuses to give an official figure more than once a year. On 31 December 2018 there were 518,659 members.

But a “senior party insider” told HuffPost UK more than 100,000 people have joined the party in recent weeks. The figure has now also been confirmed to the Mirror by a senior source.

One unconfirmed rumour doing the rounds in Labour circles suggests the total could be even higher, with around 150,000 joining since the election.

However, the Mirror’s source said the number of new joiners had hit 105,000 by the end of last week.

There’s no data on who new members are joining to support.

But it comes after a campaign to urge ‘centrists’ who left over Jeremy Corbyn to return to the party – and pleas by Corbyn critic Jess Phillips to sign up.

That could spell grim news for Rebecca Long-Bailey, who has positioned herself as the heir to Mr Corbyn.

She has support in the existing left-wing membership but a YouGov poll had her trailing Keir Starmer 37-63 in the final round.

One Constituency Labour Party (CLP) official in London told the Mirror they have seen 600 members join since the election in their area alone.

“It’s not clear [who they’re backing],” they said. “Anecdotally some are clearly Corbyn sceptics but the rest are harder to place.

“Definitely some were motivated by the election result and the thought of a Tory Government.”

New members can’t take part in CLP nominations – which Emily Thornberry and Jess Phillips appear to be struggling to get. But they can vote in the main ballot.

Members have until 5pm tonight to join the Labour Party if they want a vote in the party’s leadership election.

Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer are the frontrunners in the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn with the winner announced on April 4.

On Saturday they faced their first of more than a dozen hustings against rivals Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips and Emily Thornberry.

But the format enraged some candidates after they were given just 40 seconds to answer each question and no chance to debate directly.

Jess Phillips said in The Guardian: “I was awful because I was trying to hit a million different lines and messages in 40 seconds.

“To answer any question in 40 seconds is ridiculous. If it were possible to sum up, for example, an economic plan or an industrial strategy in 40 seconds, one wonders why they are actually hundreds of pages long. What a ridiculous farce.”

Lisa Nandy wrote to Labour general secretary Jennie Formby today saying: “I am firmly of the view that the scale of our defeat in December, the solutions that each of the candidates want to put forward warrants more than 40 seconds.

“Given the views of members in the room and responses online, there is clearly a strong appetite to get more detail from those who wish to lead our party and run our country. 

“I would welcome greater engagement and more scrutiny from party members in the audience in the room and those viewing online for future hustings, which I believe can be achieved through allocating a longer time to answer questions and for the questioner or other members online to question us further.”

But rival Emily Thornberry told PoliticsHome: “I think when you’ve spent many years in frontbench roles like I have, and filled in at PMQs, you get used to the discipline of getting your point across in 30 or 60 seconds, because that’s just how the job is.”

Last week it emerged 14,700 people had paid £25 to become “registered supporters” for a one-off vote in the leadership contest.

This was far lower than the 180,000 or so who became registered supporters in 2016. It could be because getting a short-term membership is cheaper. But it comes on top of any large influx in membership.

The leadership ballot opens on Friday 21 February and closes at noon on Thursday 2 April.